


how do i live (without you by my side)?

by danyard



Series: the words that link our souls [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21752920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danyard/pseuds/danyard
Summary: As a child, Yang had stared at the word on her arm with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Who would her soulmate be? What would they be like? Would they stay? Now that her arm is gone, and her word and Blake with it, how is she supposed to move on?
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: the words that link our souls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566088
Comments: 9
Kudos: 147





	how do i live (without you by my side)?

**Author's Note:**

> I had put Yang's soulmate word in the last fic on her right arm as contrast with Blake's being on her left, which was all well and good until a comment kindly reminded me that this would mean that she would lose her word when she ended up losing her arm. This then inspired me to think of what this would mean for someone like Yang, already dealing with previous abandonment issues that were further exacerbated by Blake leaving, and this fic here is the end result. It's not the happiest fic at times, which shouldn't be too surprising considering the subject material, but there will be a third and final fic after that wraps up this little AU on a positive note. Let me know what you think, as well as any other stories that you would be interested in seeing, and as always thank you for reading!

In retrospect, the worst part of losing her arm isn’t actually the physical loss itself.

It’s certainly not an easy thing to deal with, to be sure. Yang has always prided herself on her physical prowess, the way that she can take down an enemy with a single well-timed punch amidst the burning heat of her semblance. Her arms are more than just mere parts of her body: they’re her weapons, her means of survival. _Her means of being a Huntress_. As she sits in her bed at home in a constant daze, weighed down by the melancholy that seems to have completely overtaken her soul, it’s hard not to stare at the bandaged stump of what used to be her right arm. It represents her weakness; for all her gesturing, when she had needed her weapons the most they had failed her. Or maybe she had failed them.

Yet for all of this sadness she would endure it a million times more if it meant that she could get her word back. _Could get Blake back_.

It seemed a cruel twist of fate that the arm she had lost would be the one to contain her soulmark. As a child she had been fascinated by the single word that dotted her skin; not a short phrase or longer sentence, but a solitary name: _Blake_.

She had wondered who this mysterious “Blake” was. She had a hunch that it was probably the name of her soulmate, and that the name might be given to her as a form of introduction, but that just made her wonder even more. Would Yang’s soulmate’s mark bear her name? What should she say if she hears someone address her with her word? What if she never hears her words?

Her father had simply laughed when she had asked him all of these questions in a mounting panic one lazy summer morning. He had ruffled her hair and pulled her in for a hug, and when she had started squirming after he’d been holding her too long he had looked her in the eyes with an unusually serious expression.

“Why are you suddenly so worried about all of this?”

Yang hadn’t been able to look directly at him, staring off in the distance at Ruby racing around the yard with Zwei hot on her heels and mumbling, “What if things go bad for me like they did with you and mom?”

A knowing look made its way into her father’s expression, one that even then Yang could tell contained a great deal of pain and sorrow, and he immediately pulled her back into a tight hug. “Oh honey. I wish I could tell you that it’s easy to handle being bonded with someone else’s soul, but you and I both know it’s much more complicated than that.”

Complicated was putting it lightly. Her father had met his soulmate the first day he was at Beacon, when he was put into a team that included Yang’s mother. They had been happy together for some time, though Yang wouldn’t know; her mother had left the two of them before Yang was even old enough to truly appreciate the loss she had just endured. Then things got even more tangled when it turned out that another of her father’s teammates, Summer, had his first words to her as her soulmark. Because he and her mother had found each other so quickly Summer had remained silent when her words were spoken to her, and would have kept that secret forever had Yang’s uncle Qrow not pushed her into revealing the truth finally. Although her father did not share a true soulmate bond with Summer he had still loved her just as deeply as he had loved Yang’s mother, and for Yang she was the only true mother figure she had ever known. And just like that, just as Yang was finally able to adjust to a sense of real stability in her life, she was gone.

The loss of Summer hit her father just as hard as the previous loss had, though in some senses the impact was felt even harder. He had now lost the equivalent of two soulmates at a fairly young age and was left with the challenge of raising two daughters on his own, though fortunately for him Qrow had stepped in to stay and do what his sister couldn’t.

(When Yang was still fairly little she had asked her uncle if he was going to end up with her father like the other members of Team STRQ had before him. Qrow had given her a strange look at this inquiry, but her father had howled with laughter after he had heard it and had given Qrow a suggestive wink, so for all she knows the potential is still there.)

So if there’s one thing Yang has experience with, it’s understanding that soulmates are complicated. It’s one thing to simply be bonded to another person for the rest of your life; after all, it’s the case for everyone on the planet, one way or another. But it’s another thing entirely to make the relationship work out. It’s one that’s given a clear advantage at the start, a marker to signify that you were meant to be together, but like any other relationship it is one requires consistent effort for it to grow and thrive.

Yet even with all of the loss he’d endured throughout his life, her father had worked hard to express to her just how fortunate he was to have had his mark. “I was lucky enough to have two soulmates,” he’d told her gently, “and while everything may not have worked out perfectly in the end I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything in the world.”

Yang had looked at him curiously. “You’re saying you wouldn’t want mom or Summer back if you could?”

Her father had looked sheepish at this comment, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous laugh. “Well, yeah, obviously I would want that more than anything else if it was actually possible. But part of life is living through the rough times and coming out on top, and a big part of that is with the help of those close to you. Whether this is with or without a soulmate is just up to fate.”

She’d given him a big smile at that, and exclaimed, “When I meet my soulmate I’m gonna make sure that I’m big and strong, so I can protect them from any dangers that come our way!”

He’d looked at her intently, giving her a sad smile. “I’m sure you will.”

When Yang had finally met Blake that fateful day at Beacon, her youthful promise had immediately sprung to mind, and she was filled with a sense of determination to protect the gentle girl in front of her.

Blake was a mysterious entity to her at first, someone who at times worked to shut out the world and yet strived so hard to make it a better place. She had told Yang her history before Beacon, of the White Fang and Adam, and of the fear she held that he would one day return to wreak havoc on the new life she had created for herself. She had never said it aloud, but Yang could tell that Blake worried that Adam would harm Yang simply for being Blake’s soulmate, undue vengeance for being the person that Adam could never hope to be. When moments like these occurred Yang would hold Blake close, whispering softly into her hair that she would protect her from the dangers that might come their way and squeezing her tightly when the occasional sob would wrack Blake’s body.

But Yang hadn’t been able to protect her.

When Beacon fell she had torn through its streets in a mad panic, fear rushing through her veins at the thoughts of Blake fighting for her life or, even worse, lying dead somewhere alone. As she searched and searched she seemed no closer to finding her than ever before, until she felt the word on her arm burn with a fierce intensity. Yang had looked down at her arm, but nothing seemed different; she wasn’t sure what exactly had caused the sensation to appear in the first place. But she got a clearer idea when she looked up and finally saw Blake, lying on the ground with a dark shadow looming directly over her.

Based on what Blake had told her before this had to be Adam, and Yang knew that if she was going to take him down she’d have to be smart in her attack. Strategy here was key.

Strategy went out the wayside the moment he had stabbed Blake. Yang’s vision became a muddled blur of red, and she found herself lunging toward him, semblance activated and arm primed to smash her fist directly into his skull. And just like that, her arm was gone.

(After the fact Yang wonders if Adam knew that the arm he had cut off was the one with her word on it, if he had even known that she and Blake had been soulmates at all. It doesn’t change what had happened, but the version of that night that has that extra layer of cruelty to it haunts her just a little bit more every time she thinks of it.)

Waking up to find that her word is gone is as much of a gut punch as the actual loss of her arm. Knowing that Blake hadn’t stayed with her, that she had ran instead, hits her even harder.

These losses are what keeps her spirit down during the first few weeks back at home. She had known from her father’s own experience that it was possible to lose a soulmate, or to have a soulmate leave you of their own accord, but once she had actually met Blake she had thought that things would be different. That maybe for once in her life someone who was important to her wouldn’t leave, one way or the other. That maybe this was how things were supposed to be.

But Blake had ran, just like her mother had all those years ago, and pain and resentment burrow themselves deeper in her chest, leaving her no hope for a future in which her soulmark and Blake are gone from her life.

Her fortunes start to change once she receives her new arm.

Yang should know something is up immediately by the strange expression her father is wearing when he brings it over to her to unwrap, but she’s honestly so caught up in the varied emotions that she’s feeling that she doesn’t pay it much heed. She’s certainly happy to receive it, is definitely ready to be (at least somewhat) whole again, but she also knows that there is a more somber significance to the ordeal. When she attaches the arm she knows that the metal it will be made of will be perfectly crafted, durable, smooth, and _entirely free of writing_.

She remembers her father’s words, about coming out on top even if her soulmate isn’t there to help her do it, and with a fresh sense of determination she opens up the wrapping.

What Yang sees leaves her momentarily speechless.

The arm itself is well crafted, gleaming silver and sure to have a wide range of useful components that will allow her to return to the form she had once maintained, but that’s not what startles her. What startles her is the single word that she sees laid out directly in its middle: _Blake_ , written in the exact same crisp font that she had so lovingly stared at her whole life.

She looks at her father with a sense of wonder. “How did you do this?”

He looks back at her oddly. “What do you mean ‘How did I do this’? It just appeared on the arm after it had already been made.”

This makes Yang pause for a moment, though not for too long. “You really expect me to believe that the word just magically appeared there one day, instead of, you know, the more believable truth that you or someone else put it there yourselves?”

“Hey, believe whatever you want. The way I see it, the universe sometimes works in mysterious ways. After everything you’ve had to deal with your whole life, don’t you think you deserve this one little thing?”

And Yang wants to believe in a benevolent universe that is looking out for her, one that ultimately has her best intentions at heart, but it doesn’t stop her from blurting out, “Well it doesn’t matter anyway. Blake left. My word is pointless.”

Deep down she doesn’t really believe this, and she knows her father doesn’t either. “As someone who’s been in your place before I won’t tell you that everything will work itself out easily and cleanly, or that you won’t be hurt again. That’s not the way the world works, plain and simple, and I know you wouldn’t believe me anyway if I tried to tell you otherwise. But your story’s not over yet. _Blake’s_ isn’t either, and I think the presence of the word on that arm is there to remind you that there’s still a possibility that the two of you will meet again someday, however it may be.”

Yang’s no longer able to hold her tears in by this point, and she sobs uncontrollably into her father’s shoulder, feeling the emotions that had plagued her mind (sadness, longing, anger) begin to lessen incrementally with the new gift she’s been given.

Once she finally gets the arm attached and she’s back in the privacy of her own room, she gets the chance to actually take a closer look at Blake’s name. The arm maintains its consistency throughout when she runs her finger over that section, and it’s clear that at the very least it wasn’t carved in there. The reproduction of the original is frighteningly uncanny: it’s located on the exact same spot of the arm as before and contains all the stylized idiosyncrasies that she had memorized after years of close examination. If her father had done this, then he had certainly done an excellent job.

But maybe he hadn’t created this little gift. Maybe the universe was looking out for her, or at the very least was making up for its shitty behavior by giving her this singular solace. Either way, the origin of the word’s creator doesn’t really matter much to Yang in the end. What matters to her is that it’s back with her, both on her arm and in her soul. Before she had felt empty, spiritually drained in a way that threatened to engulf her completely if she did not push back, but she feels a renewed sense of determination fill her soul. Blake had left; that much is true. If… _when_ Yang finds her again they’re going to need to have another talk about abandonment issues and how not to exacerbate them by fleeing the precise moment real trouble rears its ugly head, just so they’re not in this exact same situation later on down the road. But Yang _is_ going to find her, and all the proof in the world that she needs is written right here on her am, her road map to redemption.


End file.
